The Mummy's Curse

by Penny Warner

  With the three of them working together, the kids managed to turn Luke into a pretty cool-looking mummy in only a few minutes. Cody stood back and admired their work. She tucked in several loose ends, then said to Luke, “Perfect! Can you walk?”

  Luke raised his arms like a zombie and took a few stiff steps forward. He even walks like a mummy, Cody thought. This just might work.

  “Quinn, give me your phone,” she said.

  “Why? You have your own phone.”

  “I’ll be using mine, and Luke needs one.”

  Quinn handed his cell phone to Cody. She quickly searched the apps site, then loaded a new app.

  “Okay, come on. We have to get back before it’s too late.” Cody explained the details of her plan as they headed for the tunnel. When they neared the entrance, she saw Dr. Jordan, Officer Finsilver, and Ms. Stad standing just outside the opening.

  Ms. Stad turned around. “What took you so—” she began to say. She stopped when her eyes fell on Luke the Mummy. She gasped. “What in the world are you kids …”

  Cody looked at the others, then finger-spelled,

  Code Buster’s Key and Solution found on this page, this page.

  Without saying a word, the kids ran into the dark tunnel, their path lit only by Cody’s cell phone light.

  “Hey, stop!” Officer Finsilver yelled. He started after them, but they were faster than the cop, who was laden with heavy police gear. He wasn’t quite as nimble in taking the twists and turns of the tunnel. Moments later, the Code Busters spotted Sergeant Casey, his back to them.

  Beyond him, in the beam of the sergeant’s flashlight, Cody saw the shadowed form of Ms. Cassatt. She stood holding the heavy statue, her thickly outlined eyes wild with desperation.

  Cody turned to Luke. “Get down before she sees you,” she whispered to the mummy. He ducked down, then knelt on his hands and knees.

  Sergeant Casey whirled around when he heard Cody. “What are you kids doing here? Get back! Where’s Officer Finsilver?”

  Officer Finsilver arrived seconds later, huffing and puffing. “They were too fast!” he cried. “I couldn’t stop them!”

  Ignoring the sergeant, Cody raised her arms and called out, “Ms. Cassatt? It’s me, Cody. You said you wanted a kid so you could get out of here? I’m the one who got us into this mess, so I’m volunteering.”

  Sergeant Casey stared at her. “Oh no you’re not! Not on my watch!”

  “Smart move, girl!” Ms. Cassatt called out. “Now, hurry up. The rest of you, get out now! Or the mummy gets it.”

  Cody turned and whispered her plan to the sergeant. He shook his head. “No way. Too dangerous,” he said.

  She looked at Ms. Cassatt, who was standing about five feet away, her face drawn, eyes menacing. Between the sergeant and Ms. Cassatt sat a decorative sarcophagus large enough to hold a human body. The Plexiglas top lay open and had been pushed aside. Cody nodded to Luke. He took his cue and began crawling toward the front of the sarcophagus, keeping low to remain hidden by the massive artifact.

  “Back off!” Ms. Cassatt yelled at the sergeant again. “I mean it. Once I’m out of here, you can have the kid back. Until then, she’s my insurance policy. Clear the tunnel!”

  Cody whispered to the sergeant, “Shine the light right in her face.”

  The sergeant frowned but then did as she asked. Ms. Cassatt immediately turned away from the blinding light. As she did, Luke stretched out on the floor on the sergeant’s side of the tomb.

  Meanwhile, Cody slipped her phone out of her pocket and prepared to press an app icon.

  “Come here, you little brat!” Ms. Cassatt commanded Cody. “The rest of you, beat it!” She held the heavy statue over her head, ready to bring it down on the priceless mummy inside the open tomb.

  Cody pressed the icon on her phone. A red light filled the dark room and began to pulsate.

  “Miiiiirraaaaabbbbeeelllll Caaassssaaattttt …,” echoed a low, unearthly voice.

  Nice job, Luke, Cody thought. She swore he sounded just like a mummy speaking from the dead for the first time in centuries.

  A claw-shaped hand, wrapped in layers of white toilet paper, suddenly shot up from behind the sarcophagus, casting a giant shadow on the walls from the flashlight beam.

  Then an arm appeared …

  And a shoulder …

  And a head …

  A body rose up, its arms extended, eerily facing Ms. Cassatt.

  The hideous voice came again: “Miiiiiirrrrraaaaaabeellllllll Caaaaaaaaasssssssaaatttt …”

  Luke the Mummy leaned toward the frightened woman, his clawed hands reaching for her.

  Ms. Cassatt gave a deafening scream and dropped the statue.

  Nice going!” Sergeant Casey said to the Code Busters, after he and his two officers had taken Ms. Cassatt into custody. “You kids took a very big risk, and you could have gotten seriously hurt, but it was clever of you to dress like a mummy, son, and make all those weird sounds.”

  Now that the standoff was over, the kids were back in the museum lobby, talking to the sergeant and Dr. Jordan. Ms. Stad had a protective arm wrapped around M.E. and was listening as the Code Busters explained the details of their plan.

  “We figured if we distracted Ms. Cassatt, you might have a chance to get her,” Cody said to the sergeant.

  He shook his head. “Yeah, but it could have backfired, you know.”

  The kids nodded.

  “How did you make your voice sound like a mummy’s?” Dr. Jordan asked.

  Quinn explained, “There’s an app for that. It’s called Scary Voice Changer. You can do all kinds of things with your voice—sound like a robot or a mouse or an alien. Or make it sound like you’re underwater. You can even add an echo.”

  “The mummy app is awesome,” Luke said, grinning. He had pulled most of the toilet paper off, but a few pieces were still stuck inside his waistband and in his shoes. “Oooawwwww,” he added, demonstrating the mummy sound while wiggling his fingers.

  “How did you know she was afraid of mummies?” Ms. Stad asked. She gave M.E. a squeeze.

  “We didn’t,” M.E. answered. “But we figured, after she’d spent all these years hanging out with mummies, we might at least startle her.”

  “Well, you did that,” the sergeant said. “I especially liked the flashing red light. I suppose you used an app for that, too?”

  Cody nodded, then touched the icon on her phone. The room lit up with swirling red light.

  “Pretty cool,” Dr. Jordan said. “I might have to add those tricks when I give talks to students. Maybe I’ll even dress up like a mummy and use that mummy voice.”

  Ms. Stad arched her eyebrow.

  “Then again, maybe not,” he said, grinning sheepishly.

  “So, what’s going to happen to Ms. Cassatt?” Quinn asked.

  “For now, jail,” the sergeant said. “I’ve got a couple of officers checking out her home. I have a feeling we’ll find more artifacts she might have ‘replaced.’ ”

  “Is she a real forger?” Luke asked.

  Dr. Jordan shook his head. “I doubt it. That’s quite a skill to master. But she knows a lot of people in the world of artifacts—some reputable, some not. It wouldn’t be difficult for her to find a forger to make the fakes.”

  “Then all she’d have to do is switch the real ones with the replicas when no one was around,” Quinn said. “I saw that in a movie once.”

  “Yeah,” Luke said. “Then she could sell them on the black market.”

  “Or keep them for herself,” M.E. added, “and pretend they were reproductions. I wouldn’t mind having some fake Egyptian jewelry to wear.”

  “Can you get those things back from the black market?” Quinn asked.

  “Sometimes they turn up,” Dr. Jordan said. “But often they go missing for decades. It’s a good thing you figured out what she was doing; otherwise, it could have been a lot worse.”

  “Why did she do it?” Cody asked, shaking her h
ead.

  “Who knows why some people become greedy?” Dr. Jordan answered, holding up the recovered Eye of Horus and admiring it. “It’s not always easy being around all these beautiful treasures, knowing you’ll never own them. Mirabel Cassatt loved her jewelry. I suppose she got tired of wearing imitations and wanted the real thing. And working here, she thought she could get away with it.”

  “But she tried to make it look like I stole that Eye of Horus!” Cody said.

  Dr. Jordan nodded. “She must have dropped it in your pocket at some point, to take the focus off herself.”

  Cody remembered when Ms. Cassatt bumped into her, just before she accused her of stealing the artifact. That would have been the perfect opportunity to slip the Eye into her pocket. Sort of like a pickpocket, but in reverse.

  “Well, I’m just glad this is over,” Ms. Stad said. “We’re going to be very late getting all the students back to school. Our volunteers are calling the parents so they won’t worry. I just hope we’ll still be allowed to go on more field trips.”

  “Me too,” said Quinn. “ ’Cause this one was awesome!” He fist-bumped Luke.

  The adults laughed and shook their heads.

  Awesome? Cody thought about the close call she’d had with Ms. Cassatt and shivered. If it hadn’t been for her friends, she might have ended up sharing eternal space with that old mummy. Not so awesome. But it was still nice to know she had helped save a bit of priceless history today.

  While the adults chatted, Cody turned to her friends and signed,

  Code Buster’s Key and Solution found on this page, this page.

  Then they all linked their index fingers—Cody to Luke, Luke to M.E., M.E. to Quinn, and Quinn back to Cody—to form a circle. It was the American Sign Language sign for “friendship.”

  The Code Busters, along with the other sixth graders, were tired when they arrived back at school. It was an hour past the last bell, and the rest of the student body had gone home. Luckily, the kids had the weekend to rest up before school on Monday.

  After a good night’s sleep, Cody and her friends spent most of Saturday in their clubhouse, reliving the adventure.

  “That field trip was awesome,” Quinn said as he sat down on the carpeted floor.

  Luke nodded. “Dude, we actually discovered a forgery. How cool is that?”

  “Pretty amazing,” Cody said, “even though it almost got us in trouble.”

  “Yeah,” M.E. added. “I’m surprised Matt the Brat didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  The kids laughed. That is a first, Cody thought. He was the one who usually caused trouble. Maybe he was getting better. Cody shook her head. Naw, not Matt the Brat.

  M.E. looked at Cody. “Why did you shake your head just now?”

  Cody smiled. “No reason. Just thinking about everything. You know, we never did figure out who drew that last picture in the classroom. Or what it meant.”

  “I guess we’ll have to wait until Monday for the answer,” Luke said.

  “Yeah, but what if Stad doesn’t know either?” Quinn added. “And what if the person who did it never confesses?”

  Cody nodded thoughtfully. “Steganography is what started all of this—and that assignment to draw those pictures with hidden messages inside.”

  “In a way, steganography is what led us to discover the fake Eye of Horus,” Luke said. “The Eye was hidden right in front of our eyes. We just didn’t see it at first.”

  “Well, I love learning Egyptian hieroglyphs,” M.E. said. “It’s weird that people first thought they were just drawings of birds and hooks and things, but after that guy cracked the code, those symbols turned out to be letters and words.”

  “Yeah, hieroglyphs are cool,” Cody said, sketching the Eye of Horus in her Code Busters notebook. “We need to use them more when we send secret messages. And steganography, too.”

  “Except that everyone in class has a decoder card for hieroglyphs, so our messages won’t be very secret,” M.E. said, staring at Cody’s drawing. Cody used a ruler as she sketched each part of the Eye. When she was done, she labeled the sections with fractions.

  “What’s that for?” M.E. asked.

  “Nothing special,” Cody said. “I just think it’s cool how you can use the Eye to measure stuff if you don’t have a ruler,” Cody said. “Each part measures part of an inch—one-half, one-fourth, one-eighth. Even measurements were hidden in the Eye.”

  “That Eye of Horus is full of mystery,” M.E. said. “And so was Ms. Cassatt.”

  “Dude, I’m glad we figured out what she was doing with that Eye,” Luke said. “Otherwise, the fake one might never have been discovered.”

  “Did Ms. Cassatt really think she wouldn’t get caught?” M.E. asked.

  “Seriously!” Luke said. “She even wore the fake in plain sight. Still, she fooled a lot of people.”

  “Well,” Quinn said, “we learned other ways to send secret messages, too, like knitting Morse code with yarn and writing sentences with i’s and t’s for dots and dashes.”

  “Or shaving your head and tattooing a message,” Luke added, then he readjusted his Saints cap. “Dude, no way am I shaving my head just to send a code.”

  Cody laughed.

  “And we learned about hidden symbols on money,” Quinn said. He took out a five-dollar bill and held it up to the light. “There’s the watermark and the security thread. I guess this one isn’t counterfeit.”

  The kids smiled.

  “My favorite code is still hieroglyphs,” Cody said. “There are so many ways you can use them to send messages. Maybe we should invent our own style of glyphs.”

  “Great idea,” M.E. said. “Like, the letter a could be a drawing of an apple or an airplane. B could be a ball or a bat. C could be a cat or a crown.”

  “Sure,” Cody said, “those are all pretty easy to draw. Or we could just use symbols from the computer. That way, we could send secret computer messages.”

  Quinn got out his Code Busters notebook and a pencil. “Let’s get to work. We’ve got some Code Buster glyphs to create!”

  When the four kids returned to school on Monday, they had completed their own glyph code using computer keyboard symbols and had e-mailed each other secret messages.

  M.E. had written:

  Luke had sent:

  Quinn had typed:

  And Cody had e-mailed:

  Code Buster’s Key and Solution found on this page, this page.

  They’d also printed out some coded messages and hidden them in their secret hiding places. Cody found a note in the knothole of the ash tree in her yard. M.E.’s message was tucked inside her flower box. Luke’s was under the doorstep of his grand-mère’s condo. And Quinn spotted his in the family doghouse. Cody was totally hooked on creating her own glyphs and couldn’t wait to do more.

  When they reached Berkeley Cooperative Middle School, Cody and M.E. waved good-bye to Luke and Quinn, and the pairs headed for their own classrooms. When the girls entered Ms. Stad’s room, they noticed the last drawing was still taped to the whiteboard.

  It looked to Cody like the hidden picture still hadn’t been solved.

  “Good morning, class!” Ms. Stad greeted the students after they were settled at their desks. “I hope you had a good time at the museum—in spite of all the drama. As you know, two of our students, along with two students from Mr. Pike’s class, did a little ‘extra credit’ work while they were there.” She paused and smiled at Cody and M.E. “Thanks to their keen eyes and what they learned about fakes and forgeries, they were able to catch a thief in the act of stealing a valuable artifact and save the Egyptian Museum a lot of money. How about a round of applause for Cody and M.E.!”

  The kids clapped—all except for Matt the Brat, who turned and gave Cody the stink-eye. Cody ignored him, figuring he was just jealous about the attention she and M.E. were getting.

  “And now I have a surprise,” Ms. Stad continued. “We have a special guest today.” She opened t
he classroom door and in walked Dr. Jordan. The kids clapped, happy to see the museum art expert.

  “Hi, students!” Dr. Jordan said, greeting the group of sixth graders. He turned to the teacher. “Thanks for the invitation to come and visit your classroom, Ms. Stadelhofer.”

  “We’re so happy to see you again, Dr. Jordan. Welcome.” She turned back to her students. “Dr. Jordan is here to help us solve a mystery.”

  The class grew quiet in anticipation. Cody wondered what mystery Dr. Jordan could solve in their ordinary classroom. It certainly wasn’t like the museum, which was full of mysteries, puzzles, codes, and riddles.

  “Dr. Jordan, we’re stumped,” Ms. Stad said to him. “Last week, I asked the students to create their own hidden pictures.”

  Dr. Jordan nodded. “Ah, yes. Steganography. How did they do?”

  “Excellently!” Ms. Stad said. “They solved all of the picture puzzles—except one.” She pointed to the lone picture on the whiteboard and the Egyptian hieroglyphs underneath. “We wondered if you could help us, since you’re an expert in Egyptian art and hieroglyphic writing.”

  Code Buster’s Key and Solution found on this page, this page.

  Dr. Jordan studied the drawing of an eye inside a triangle and the hieroglyphs below.

  “The students used their hieroglyphic decoder cards to translate the symbols,” Ms. Stad continued, “but the letters made no sense. Maybe you can help us crack the code?”

  Dr. Jordan nodded. “That’s the Eye of Providence that watches over all of us. You’ll find the symbol on the one-dollar bill.” Dr. Jordan focused on the hieroglyphs. Then he drew in a deep breath, let it out, and said, “Aha!”

  “You’ve figured out the message?” Ms. Stad said, her eyebrows raised in excitement. Cody wondered if Ms. Stad really knew the answer already.

  “I think I have,” Dr. Jordan said. “But before I tell you, I’ll give you all a clue. Write out the message on a piece of paper in the same pattern as the hieroglyphs.”